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Digital Art & Illustration 04: Focus on Dean Holden

Posted: May 23, 2007
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Author: Chris Murphy
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Filed under: Illustration, Influences
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Tags: No tags set for this entry.

With so many new artists producing stellar work these days, it is very difficult to keep up with what's new and what's hot. I've run across some new artists lately - perhaps not new, but emerging - and even in the relatively small body of work many of them have, there can be seen an amazing potential. It makes me envious to say the least, but this is their talent and many of them have been gracious enough to share their work with the online community.

Rather than lamenting over the many days (read: weeks) since my last posting, I’m going to gloss over all of that and summarize it by simply saying: “I was busy. Very busy.”

With that aside, I wanted to pick up where I left off with another installment of my “Digital Art and Illustration” series that I started late last year. I’ve come across so many talented artists that it is nearly impossible to really say that I favor one over the other, let alone try to select one amongst them to showcase here. Every one of them has various qualities that make them unique both stylistically and conceptually, and so saying one is simply better than the other is just plain wrong; however, I did have the good fortune to come across an artist whose work grabbed my attention - Dean Holden of Seoul, South Korea.

The first thing that really grabbed my attention was the sheer vibrancy of Dean’s color pallete, the storybook quality of his work is largely communicated by his choice of color as applied to the subject of his pieces. “Vibrant” is perhaps a term too modest to describe the way it lures the viewer into the work and snares their attention. It is rich and luscious in very much the same way Brom’s work comes across. Any similarities end there. Dean has developed a style that hints at so many different influences such as manga, North American mainstream comicbooks, classical painting, etc. and pulls them together to create a style that is evocative, playful and nostalgic. I will go so far as to say that Dean’s work reminds me also of the famous cover painter Darrell K. Sweet - at least in so much as the storybook quality I mentioned previously.

In any case, if you are looking for great influence or inspiration check out Dean’s site here.